The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1887-10-27
PENCIL MANGINALIA..FOR SUN.
DAY READING,
BY II, z. N.
III f.
lSpecial Cor, STATE CHRONICLE.l

BY H, T. NJ.
Especial Cor, STATE CHRoNIcLE.l
The NAN WHO LAUGHS. Let me say
little about laughter. What an endless
subject OF contemplation it is with thought
ful men! How many have written, to ex-
cite or to comment on it, from Lucian to
Jean Paul, from Jean Paul to Sunset Ccxi
How wisely Goethe says, There is no bet
ter test of character than to know what
one Things lapghahle. The greatest hu-
man searcher of hearts was not only oapa-
bile himself Of drawing iron tears of mer-
rlMent down Rluto's cheek, but had poor
opinion of one NOT given to mirth and
youthful jollity. He has Caesar, his ideal
OF heart readers, to say of Cassius, the
conspirator q quote from memo:yA:
He loves no PLAYS, as thou dost, Antony;
As If he mocked himself, and scosnsd the
spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything"
How sweetly wise, too, are those lines
of Swinburne in reference to our own
"Artemus Ward";
NAY, if aught can be sure, what is surer
Than that Earth's good decays not with
Earths
D Than the springs Of the fountain Of mi.th
He that sounds THEM has piprced the hearts
hollows
The places where tears choose to sleep,
For the foam flakes that dance in life's shall
Are wrung from lifes deeps"
Ard SO the grim old Carlyle, whose wit,
as was said of Dr. Johnson's, Was like the
RIcHoTTING of cannon balls, has given US
precept Ipd example in this matter of
provoking and commending laughter. II
shall hereafter find occasion to comment
on his own ''hyper- -Bregd isnagian" funl.
In that sublime quiz book, the s'Sartor
Resartus," he felicitates himself that he
once said his apochrypal Teufelsdrockh
laugh laugh enough to have awak-
ened the seven sleepers! 1t was Jean
Paul's doing; some single billow in that
world-Mahlstrom of Humor, with its
Heaven-klssing Corruscations, now, alas,
all CONCEALED in the frost of Death!' Jean
Paul had, in his inimitable way, proposed
Cast Metal King" Whereat "a light
kindled in our professors eyes and face, a
beaming, mantling light; through those
murky features a. radiant young Apollo
looked and he burst forth like the neigh
ing Of all Tattersalls, tears streaming
down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, foot
clutched in air-long, loud, continuing,
uncomfortable laugh not of the dia-
phragm only, but of the whole man, from
head to heel. ..............
Readers who have any tincture of psy-
chology know how much is to be inferred
from this, AND THAT NO MAN WHO HAS ONCE
HEARTILY AND WHOLLY LAUGHED CAN ne
ALTOGETHER IRRECLAIMABLY BAD. How
much lies in laughter, the cipher-key
wherewith we deoipher the whole man!
Some men wear an everlasting barren sim
per. In the smile of others lies cold
glitter as of ice. The fewest are able to
laugh what can be called laughing, but
only sniff and litter and snigger from the
throat outward, or, at best, produce some
whiff1ing, husky, cachinnation, as if they
were laughing through wool. OF such
comes no good. The man who cannot
laugh is not only fit for treasons, strata
gems and spoils, but his whole life is
already a treason and stratagem
AS literary queries are now the fashion,
let me ask who it was that styled Patrick
Henry "the forest-born Demosthenes, F."
and where in the authors writings may
the expression be found
In Coleridge's ''Ancient Mariner one
of the most wierdly beautiful poems that
| the world has ever seen, occur these lines:
"I fear thee for thy glittering eye,
And for thy skinny hand,
AND THOU ART LONG AND LANK AND BROWN,
| AS is THE RIBBED sEA-sAND."
For the last two lines by far the most
striking of the four-Mr. Coleridge mag
unanimously acknowledges himself indebt
ed to Wordsworth, to whom they were
suggested by the ocean shore scenery as
the companion poets were strOlling to-
gether by the Understanding sea. y
Perhaps / can now claim, in behalf of a
! Al 4 u
scription to the Wilson Advance for the
ICLE of October Goth. By the way, Prof.
Smith, if he has not already perused it,
will find some very interesting reading in
De Quincey's exposition of the RATIONALE
OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. It is, l think
in that volume q forget the number) OF
the Riverside" edition of his works which
also contains his profound and subtle
thoughts ION the knocking at the gate il
Macbeth" l have not the space in this
issue of the CHRONICLE to reproduce ever
the substance of it, but the leading idea is
that the "Ancient Mariner, with his Gin
ward agony" which will not admit of sur
cease until he has repeated his wild ant
dismal story, is intended to picture tht
victim of REMORsE as it visits its fur.
upon superstitious mind, crazed by feve
and enfeebled by suffering:
*
In my last MARGINALIA the CHRONICLE
has me using, in several places, outrage
ously different words from those l em
ployed. SIN NO MORE, l command ye!
A Fool Utterance by Ohio's Fool Gov
ernOrs
Extract from Foraker's Speech
We are fighting to compel the Southern